


The New Friends of James Barnes, Actual Human Being (Plus One Old One)

by supergreak



Series: Loosely Connected Post-Winter Soldier Fics [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Deadpool (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, She-Hulk, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Food, Gen, Gen Work, Humor, If You Squint - Freeform, In Soviet Russia, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Minor Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Nothing Good Happens At Taco Bell, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Road Trip of Food and Also Justice, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Women Being Awesome, bucky up all night to get YOU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2270253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supergreak/pseuds/supergreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Winter Soldier makes some new friends, demolishes a lot of Hydra bases, discovers food courts, and finds his way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Situation Assessment

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: brief descriptions of canon-typical violence, Bucky Barnes’ mental health, killing lots of Hydra agents without any sympathy, plentiful strong language, no seriously lots of people die in this fic, good guys getting injured, using comics canon willy-nilly with little regard for timelines or facts.
> 
> Beta read by the incomparable raving_liberal, without whom this fic would have a lot more misplaced commas.  
> All remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.

After pulling the Captain from the river, running on autopilot [procure inconspicuous clothing, stash obvious weapons, assess area, assess threat level], he figured out a few things.

1\. People in this town were ridiculously easy to steal from

2\. Hydra's handling techniques were painful, inefficient, and nothing he wanted to return to. The Asset couldn't remember if he'd ever been a free agent before, but he had all the skills and didn't need handlers who thought electrical prods were good motivation.

3\. Hydra had set him up for failure (for death) on the Helicarrier and on the bridge. He couldn't remember the fight on the bridge, but there was footage playing on televisions in nearly every bar and store he stopped in. There was a teenager, at a table outside a restaurant, watching the footage of the bridge fight on what he called “Youtube”. The kid said to his companion that it was “like totally different than the Captain’s normal style of fighting, dude.” He then proved his point by pulling up another video of the Battle of New York, and discussing the tactics therein loudly enough for the Asset, standing on the sidewalk (two tables and a low fence away) to hear. The Captain, Captain America according to these young people, had clearly been pulling punches when he'd fought The Asset ( _no one's asset anymore_ ). 

Sending him up against such a superior enemy was sending him on a suicide mission, and they'd done it twice. Clearly, they wanted the Asset decommissioned. Dead. Whatever civilians called it. Which was a shitty was to run an organization, really, because he couldn't go on missions if he were dead.

3b. The Internet was fucking amazing.

4\. The Asset did not want to die.

5\. Recon led him to the exhibit. To the man who shares his face. Resembling a hero's dead childhood friend could have strategic advantages if he ever wanted to ally himself with them, as he'd clearly come out on top of the SHIELD/HYDRA face off. According to the exhibit, Captain America had been the enemy of Hydra since the beginning, so they shared a common enemy. Perhaps he had allies who might help the Asset with maintenance to his arm, if he proved himself a valuable enough ally first.

All of this lead him to one conclusion:

Taking down Hydra would be a good first step. Eliminate a personal enemy who wanted him dead while proving himself to a potential ally, an ally with resources he wanted. Establish a solid reputation as a freelancer. 

To do that, he started with the two bases that he knew of in this city. In one location, he found a list of agents uncompromised by SHIELD's data upload and a sufficient stock of weaponry. At the second, he found four agents (eliminated quickly) and what he was looking for: an armored van with defensive capabilities, preloaded with medical supplies, bug-scanning equipment, and uniforms and IDs for various agencies, in addition to cash.

Hydra didn't know how to handle their resources, but they kept well-stocked cars. 

He drove the vehicle to an unmonitored parking building farther from the disaster zone. It was sparsely occupied, and by parking on the empty roof, he had good surveillance angles in most directions, while being unremarkable himself. Securing the perimeter, he tried to remember what assets without handlers did. He'd seen agents and civilians eating and drinking, though he can't remember ever doing so himself. He found a box labeled "food" in the back with a case of individual ‘water bottles’. He unwrapped one of the bars, as he'd seen Rumlow do the day before, and ate it quickly, instantly feeling better. So _that_ was why civilians ate food – to fix that empty feeling. He’d thought that was just baseline operating standard. With a shrug, he opened a ‘water bottle’ and took a drink, swallowing on reflex.

Wow.

Okay.

This was much closer to optimal functioning conditions. It would take… a lot of those brightly-wrapped granola bars to meet his daily caloric requirements, which he somehow knew was more than the “2000 Calorie Diet” listed on the back. (why did he know that?) Regardless, they would suffice until he could research the nutritional requirements for optimal performance. Maybe all those numbers on the back related to something useful.

After finishing the water, the Asset decided to rest his eyes for a minute, seeing as there was no one around, and he would definitely hear anyone approaching the vehicle.

FOUR HOURS LATER

The Asset blinked back into awareness as the sun was rising. His body had clearly repaired itself somewhat while he was unconscious; perhaps this was how independent agents and civilians performed self-maintenance? He took a very deep, somewhat involuntary breath. _Sleep_ , that was what the Comfortable Repairing Unconsciousness was called. He’d heard of it, of course, but never thought it applied to him. The _other_ way of maintenance he knew of involved the Chair and the cold box and hurt like hell. This, _sleep_ , it felt… good. 

Sleep was a thing he wanted to try again, maybe intentionally next time. 

No one had disturbed his traps surrounding the vehicle or triggered any of his sensors. Motion-activated video cameras (thank you, Hydra, for your preparedness) showed only birds. He ate another granola bar, drank two bottles of water, and then remembered what urination was. Urgently. 

[The men’s room in the parking garage basement was unoccupied when he got in. He figured it out. If he got sprayed by the motion-detecting sink and let out a high-pitched shriek, he was _not_ going to talk about it.]

The first Hydra base on his list was in Maryland. He located and scoped out the base with little effort, then started planning. The mission was simple enough, but who to notify to make sure the Captain saw his handiwork? He decided on the Black Widow, who not only had ties to the Captain, but was also a well-regarded assassin on the international stage for years before working for SHIELD, according to his last mission briefing. Known for professionalism. The Winter Soldier (as he was no one’s asset anymore, he _wasn’t_ ) respected that. She’d know how to handle any intel he found. Also, she had a public phone number. Convenient. 

He killed the “Hail Hydra”–shouting guards (3), who really needed to learn about subtlety, and the scientists (15) with brutal efficiency, grabbing hard drives and USB sticks from every computer, and paper files of anything that looked important, tossing them into a filing box. (Another skill he couldn’t remember learning, but this one was useful, at least). On a whim, he found a digital camera on one of the desks and took pictures of every target he’d eliminated. 

He set the box by the door and went back through, piling ammo into a bag he’d found, while laying explosives through the entire building. In the small parking lot, he set his box of treasures down and labeled the top. He typed in the GPS coordinates on a phone he’d taken from one of the dead guards, addressing a text message to the Widow’s public phone number. He hefted his bag of supplies over one shoulder and pressed “send” as the building blew. 

Mission accomplished.

JARVIS called her personal cell phone; she stepped out of the hospital wing to accept the call. 

“Ma’am, your public number received a text message with coordinates the exact moment that a building at those coordinates exploded. You may want to investigate.”

She did.

And, well, there was a _thoroughly_ demolished building. And a banker’s box, taped shut, in the middle of the deserted parking lot. Her scans showed no explosives, so she approached and burst out laughing. 

> CAPTAIN-
> 
> THANK YOU FOR FIGHTING ME AT A SUB-PAR LEVEL ON THE BRIDGE AND ON THE HELICARRIER. I APPRECIATE NOT DYING. 
> 
> -THE WINTER SOLDIER

Scanning the box again, she opened it. Just the paper files were shocking – she knew that Hydra wasn’t limited to SHIELD, that they’d had redundancies, but the scope…

This base appeared to have hosted bioweapons. Who the fuck weaponizes polio, anyway?


	2. Unexpected Allies

Two: Unexpected Allies

His next target was in New Jersey. He parked five miles away in a suburban strip mall lot and wore the loose, casual clothing he’s seen people running on the streets in. With hat, sunglasses, and an oversized hooded sweatshirt on, he looked just like every other runner on the evening streets. The best part was the sleeves were long enough that his hands fit inside them, no glove necessary to conceal the metal arm. He finished his casual loop around the mostly-vacant business complex, deserted because… it was a Sunday? There was something about Sundays in America, though the specific knowledge escaped him.

From what he could tell, their surveillance and external security were crap. After all, they were trying to be an innocuous “International Imports,” but the Asset knew their operations would extend underground, far past the small parcel of land they’d paid for.

He planned, as he returned to the strip mall, to strike late that night. Less time for potential discovery with minimal chance of civilian harm. According to reports, saving civilian lives was important to Captain America, and so potential allies should at least appear to share that ideal.

However, when he got back to his vehicle, there was a car (blue, rental plates, Japanese-made) two spots away from his with a… man? Sitting on the trunk. The being wore a red and black skintight bodysuit with a face mask and had two swords strapped to their back. At least ten other weapons were strapped to various parts of their body. The person waved as the Winter Soldier slowed to approach cautiously, releasing his knife where it was strapped to his flesh wrist without letting it show out his sleeve.

"Hey, Winter Soldier, dude! I'm Deadpool, merc with a mouth, male pronouns, please. It's great t'meetcha," the man said, holding up his hands as if trying to appear harmless. "Saw what you did in Maryland. Great work. Figured if the Winter Soldier was taking down Hydra, I might join in on the fun, and I knew there was a base here. Figured you'd make it to this one eventually, and here you are!" He didn't move from the car, nor did the Soldier approach.

"What do you want?" the Soldier – which irritated him less as a title – choked out.

"You're killing Hydra, I'm a mercenary, killer for hire, that got on Hydra's Insight hit list. Which I did _not_ appreciate, bee tee dubs. Figured instead of going after them on my own, I'd work together with you. The fans love a good team-up, you know." The guy shrugged. "You might not have heard of me, with the brainwashing and freezer burn and all, but I'm strategically a very good ally. You can look me up. I can use lots of weapons, I'm crazy enough to not cast judgments on _your_ crazy, and I'm literally unkillable. No matter how assassin-y you get during flashbacks or whatever, you can't hurt me. Great healing factor. So I'm useful to have around. Especially if any grenades need jumped on, right?"

He sounded so damn young. And perky. It was… strange.

The shoulder re-holstered the knife, walking forward with a scowl. "Fine, but I’m in charge. You understand? You compromise my mission, I'm in the wind."

"No problema." Deadpool hopped off the car. "So, we got time for food before violence? Lunch was a while ago for me."

The Soldier opened up the back of his vehicle with a beep of the keys. "There are limited ration bars and water here. The asset—" He shook his head. "I don't really know how civilians get nutrition or… well, anything. Before yesterday, I don't ever remember eating, just IV lines. Solid food no longer makes me nauseated, but it's been a learning experience."

Deadpool's jaw drop was obvious even with the mask. "Okay, lock up your revenge-mo-bile; we're hitting the food court. My friend, I am going to show you so many wonderful things. That is, if we have time?"

Nodding shakily, the Soldier responded. "The guards mentioned their shift schedule – there's a changeover at 11pm, so I figure midnight will be a good time."

"Excellent!" Deadpool bounded over to him, grabbing the Soldier's metal hand without thought and dragging him towards the strip mall. "Wait until you taste chimichangas, dude."

[[click here for post in situ]](http://kamalascomicsblog.tumblr.com/post/97772637535/picture-deadpool-mouth-uncovered-eating-a)

They found two guards and three analysts, all of them white, all of them biting cyanide when they realized that they'd been captured. It wasn't even worth the fucking effort to try and take Hydra alive, seriously.

He was pulling out hard drives while Deadpool gathered paper files – a lot more at this location, which seemed more like an intel relay point than R&D.

"Whoa…" the mercenary whispered. "W.S., check this out! It's the people who trained the Black Widow. And one of 'em's still active, in Kansas. Switched allegiances when the Red Room fell so that he could continue his research. Runs a base that… is probably more human experimentation. Oh, wow, dude. They're working on _kids_ , that's just sick." He copied down the address and stuck it… somewhere, in his suit before dropping a whole stack of files into the "keep" box.

The Soldier shrugged, searching a cabinet for anything useful. "Does it really surprise you? These are the same people who made monsters like me, who worked in concentration camps in the war, who planned to murder millions in cold blood. Read the SHIELD files that got dumped – it's all in there. Human experimentation is what they cut their teeth on." He straightened, holding up a scepter, which glowed blue. "Now, this? This looks interesting. The Captain will appreciate this."

Loudly taping yet another box shut, Deadpool looked over at him. "That's why you're doing this? Not just revenge?"

The Soldier scoffed. "Captain America is Hydra's greatest enemy. The Winter Soldier would perform best without handlers, but Hydra will not let their former asset live freely. If Hydra is eliminated completely, they won't be trying to kill or capture me anymore, and the Captain will recognize these gifts as a sign of goodwill, which will keep him and _his_ allies from trying to kill the Soldier. Thus, the Soldier can work freelance without any employers who think cryofreeze is effective human resource management. Doing this will also prove my worth to potential employers."

Deadpool laughed. "You've really thought this plan out, haven't you? Even if it’s a really circumlocutory way of saying _I give him presents so he no kill me_. Good way to prove yourself to the merc circuit, too, eliminating a nuisance like Hydra. We're not much on world domination via genocide types – it's bad for the economy. But seriously, though, do you really call yourself the Soldier inside your head? Don't you have, like, a name? Or preferred pronouns, at least? Have I been hurting your feelings by calling you dude, because dude has been a non-gendered form of address since the 1890s, and therefore should work for all the boys and girls and nbs and wow that was a sidetrack."

The Soldier tilted his head to the side and thought about it before replying. "No name as far as I can recall, but he/him pronouns sound right. I'm just still getting used to using, well, ‘I’. And ‘me’, that's another new one. Sometimes I forget how normal people refer to themselves. But no name that I know."

"Choose one, then? Bob? Luke? James? Methuselah?"

"James. James sounds… correct. Factual."

"Awesome. Ready to blow this joint?" Deadpool grabbed the stack of file boxes and walked unsteadily out the door, hitting the frame once because he couldn't see over the top of the pile. James got another dead man's phone, the scepter, and a marker that said SHARPIE on the side. Once they got out the door and to the far side of the parking lot, he tossed Deadpool the marker. "Label the top box." He balanced the scepter against the side of the neat pile and dialed the phone, allowing the (enthusiastic) other man to press the detonation trigger.

A moment later, the phone rang from a blocked number. James held it tentatively up to one ear. The woman from the bridge spoke calmly. "Thank you for the gift. Very tidy job. Is there anything you need?"

The Soldier cleared his throat. "Ammunition. Food. Funds. Theft is conspicuous, and Hydra bases don't leave much petty cash lying around."

"I have some connections; I'll see what I can do. As long as – you're ensuring civilian safety?"

"Doing my best, ma'am. No non-combatant casualties yet."

"Fine. How are you doing?"

"Doing what?"

She sighed. "Are all your systems functional? Operating at peak capacity? Are you eating? Sleeping? Staying hydrated? Do you need medical assistance?"

"No systems require maintenance. I ate at a 'food court' today. It was sufficient for meeting combat-level caloric requirements. I am learning about pronouns. I… think I slept yesterday? It felt like sleep, but I lack experience. All previous injuries have healed, and I acquired only superficial wounds today. My vehicle has self-fastening bandages large enough to cover all of them, though I do not understand why the kitty is saying hello. I may replace them with bandages in less conspicuous colors when I restock. If I can figure out where civilians restock things like that."

She hummed again, and it sounded like she was stifling a laugh. "That's… okay, good. Try Walgreens or Rite-Aid for restocking med kits; they should have a comprehensive selection. Any luck regaining your memories?"

He stiffened. "How did you know I was missing memories?"

She laughed, softly and not cruelly. "Darling, you're not the only assassin the Red Room produced, though you were the first and the most successful. Hydra only bought you a decade ago or so, though your files indicate they may have been involved during the beginning of your training, as well. I've gone through at least some of what you're experiencing right now. You should try a motel, next time you sleep. Beds are great. Warm showers. Bubble baths. Think about finding some comfortable clothes that you like, not because of any mission imperative, but just because they make you happy. Have you chosen a name yet?"

Eyes wide and heart racing, he croaked. "…James. It feels right."

"Well, James, it's a pleasure to cooperate with another professional. I'll be at your location in twenty minutes, so you might want to be gone. Text me at this number if you need me. I'll let you get going. Goodnight."

She ended the call, and James just stared at the phone for eleven seconds.

"Who was _that_?" Deadpool asked.

"The Black Widow. She… liked it. What I did last time. And offered supplies. And is coming here soon, so we should—"

"Make like a tree and leaf, got it."

 

> CAP-
> 
> Get well soon!
> 
> Love,
> 
> Deadpool & The Winter Soldier


	3. A Little Help From My Friends

They found their target in Kansas, along with teenage fraternal twins, locked up in the basement. James took two phones, handing one to the girl while Deadpool and the boy duct-taped the mostly-nude op’s head (tooth pulled) like a mummy. Which was going to hurt coming off. He only had one box of drives and tech prototypes this time, the base having gone digital. The big present was this, this _asshole_ , whom he thought the Widow might want to interrogate and/or kill for herself.

He was so considerate. 

***

"Xavier's school for gifted youngsters, student speaking." Jubilee tapped her pen on the memo pad.

"Jubilee?!"

"WANDA!" she shrieked. "You're okay!" She thought really loudly in Professor X's direction.

"Long story, got rescued. Is Dad or Uncle Charles around?"

"Yeah, Professor X is picking up the phone in his—"

"Wanda? My lord, you're okay!"

"—office," Jubilee finished quietly, staying on the line to listen.

"Yeah, um, we just got rescued, we're fine, got all our toes. Deadpool and The Winter Soldier have a grudge against Hydra, apparently, and pulled us out before blowing the place sky-high. But we're in…"

Muffled, someone in the background said, "Kansas!"

"Kansas," she continued. "So we need pickup. Pietro's running circles around the parking lot. You can meet us at…" Muffled, "Dude, you want him to meet us here?"

A male voice said, "No way, this place'll be crawling with Feebs in like twenty minutes. There's a…a Marriott in Manhattan, the Kansas one, of course. Tell 'im we'll call back with a room number; we're a few hours out."

Wanda cleared her throat. "Okay, I assume you heard that?"

"Yes. Manhattan. It'll take us at least four hours, even with the X-Jet, if you could pass that on. Do you trust them for that long?"

"Well, yeah. They're crazy, but don't mean us harm. And now that we're free, they're pretty much only sticking with us out of worry, it's not like we're in custody or anything. I'll call you back later, okay? It looks like they want to get a move on."

"I love you sweetie. And call your dad's cell, okay?" He rattled off a new number. "Zodiac got a hold of the last one, wouldn't stop prank calling him."

"Will do. Love you too, Bye!"

Back in Kansas, Wanda ended the call and jogged over to the idling van. "Sorry! Pietro, Professor X gave me Dad's new cell number… something about prank calls, that's why I couldn't reach him. You want to make the call on the way to Manhattan?"

"OHyeah! butonlyif I mean. doyoumind, sir?"

The Winter Soldier looked between their cheerful smiles before sighing. "Civilians. Okay, he can make the call, just sit in the back and keep your voice down so we can focus on the road. And toss that phone when you're done with it – we have more, but two calls on a dead man's phone is too many."

Deadpool pulled down the dirt road and towards the interstate. "Yeah, hotels are defensible, but not _that_ defensible. Speaking of which, magic girl, you're the least recognizable of any of us. Make yourself a new ID – the thing with the lights and the USB cord, no, to the left – and then use the Alienware computer to make a reservation under that name. That one's firewalls are better and it's got a hotspot. You can pick up the keys and let us in the side door. Got it?"

"Yep, just give me a few minutes." She started hooking up the electronics, laptop balanced on her knees.

The Soldier snorted as they pulled onto I-70. "Acceptable strategy. Didn't know you _did_ stealth, Deadpool."

The other man protested, "I can be stealthy! Totally! I am the master of stealth. When I want to be. It's just too boring most times."

Wanda waited impatiently for the computer to boot as Pietro dialed.

"Dad? Yep, it's me! Yes, I remembered to take out the trash. Uh-huh, she's right here."

Wanda caught the flying phone without looking up from her computer. "Here, Dad, no need to worry, I brought in the laundry." She listened for a minute. “Yep. Gonna hand the phone back now."

She went back to the Photo ID program, snapping a half-decent selfie and photoshopping it into DMV-white blandness.

"Yeah, she called the mansion after you didn't pick up – your old cell? Yep, itwasHydra, but they're gone now, Deadpool and the Winter Soldier pulled us out and blew the place to smithereens. Comingtogetus – your own fault for hiding in the mansion with your helmet on. They're probably looking for you right now. Promise we'll stay safe. Loveyoutoo." He methodically disassembled the phone, snapping the SIM card and tossing the pieces out the window.

The Widow called James’ phone just a few minutes later. He reached across to turn the volume down while accepting the call. 

"Hello?"

"James, it's Romanoff. I've found someone for the funds you requested. How can I get them to you?"

"We'll be in Manhattan, Kansas, soon." He relayed their travel times and hotel information. 

"I'll send the courier to you. I can't make it myself. I'm still sorting through your gifts."

"You like them?"

"They're lovely, James. Just the way to a girl's heart – intel, glowy weapons, and tech."

"I aim to please." He smiled. "I have to burn this phone now. We've been talking too long."

"Understandable. Safe travels."

"You as well."

The piled into the hotel room, and Deadpool started flipping through channels on the television. A moment later, the courier knocked on the door and stated their code phrase. He handed James a briefcase and left without another word.

It contained… a _lot_ of money. Non-sequential bills and a DVD that said "Play me!" So James popped it into the hotel DVD player, figuring it was less important than the laptop, if they had to destroy it.

A masked figure appeared on the screen. "Doom hears that the Winter Soldier is destroying Hydra bases. Doom approves of this, as Doom does not appreciate being on Hydra's Insight assassination lists. Doom does not do Doom's own dirty work, but will support this endeavor." He then started listing off locations of weapons caches and passcodes to get into them, before finishing with, "Doom thanks you for your efforts."

James looked over at Deadpool, who was scribbling down the last set of coordinates. "Does he always speak about himself in the third person?"

Deadpool nodded. "Yep! But I'm willing to put up with it because _money_ , beautiful money." He switched the TV back to cable and started searching again.

#### CHAPTER 3b: Or, Suddenly, A POV Shift!

#### 

Wade sat in the armchair by the window, sharpening his knives and keeping watch. Halfway through their Star Wars marathon, James had passed out in a sprawl on one of the beds, feet towards the wall and at least one gun under the pillow. 

The girl was taking a shower while her brother sat at the tiny hotel desk, typing rapid-fire on James' safened laptop, blinking between two chat windows and an email account almost faster than he could track. 

**Coping methods are different for everyone,** one of the boxes reminded him.

 _Plus, James only slept like three times since we've been travelling,_ the other one pointed out. _That's a serious sleep deficit._

Two weeks and barely any sleep – Wade was glad he was finally resting. It would be much better for his health, physical and mental.

Not that he was a pinnacle of mental health, himself—

**that's bullshit, Deadpool, we're totally sane.**

_Give it a break, other box, the readers already know we're crazy._

—but even _he_ knew that sleep was important.

Wanda belted out the last notes of "Let it Go" and shut off the shower, humming wordlessly as she banged around in the bathroom.

The wall hair dryer came on, and then someone was knocking at the door. 

Wade blinked, and Pietro was at the door. "Father?"

James shot out of bed.

"Floppy drives are the bane of my existence," came a muffled voice. The kid grinned and unlocked the chain, flipping locks and pulling open the door in a flash. He swept the graying white man into a hug before stepping back, letting in him, a pale bald dude in a wheelchair, and a black lady in a jumpsuit. 

The lady said, "Scott's waiting in the plane; he didn't want to leave it unmonitored. I'm watching the hall." She stepped back outside, closing the door to give them privacy.

Pietro blurred over to bang on the bathroom door. "Sis, the 'rents are here!"

The singing stopped. "Just a second, seriously, keep your shirt on."

Deadpool laughed and jumped to his feet belatedly, holstering his knife. "Hiya! I'm Deadpool, you might have heard of me, the ghost over there's the Winter Soldier, he doesn't talk much, so don't mind the glower."

James nodded, barely, and the bald guy winced. Yep, definitely Professor Xavier that the kids mentioned. "I don't mean to be rude, son, but you're broadcasting quite loudly. They didn't warn you I'm a telepath, did they?"

James' face shuttered as he looked up. "You can control minds?"

Xavier shook his head. "No, no. Just – if you project your thoughts or don't have mental shields, I pick up on things. Anything more, I need permission. And you don't have _any_ mental shielding, I'm afraid. Someone really did a number on you."

Pietro zipped back to Deadpool, whispering, while James and Xavier stared at each other intently. 

"What was he broadcasting so loud?"

"If I had to guess? Exits, blind spots, threat assessments, ways to take each of us out if we suddenly turned hostile, and a deep desire to go back to sleep."

Tears dripped down Xavier's face as Wanda banged loudly out of the bathroom, staring. "What is going on?"

The Professor approached James cautiously. "Someone really did a number on you," hHe said out loud, continuing mentally, _Can you hear me? I'm sending deliberately, now._

He reached out to the young man's mind, careful to only see the most superficial thoughts as flashes of –

HYDRA Emblem

_fighting under a full moon_

Captain America's shield, thrown like a discus

empty chair 

faces

endless faces

_cold_

_**cold** _

"put him back into cryo"

young, red-haired girl fighting like it was a

dance

IV line hooked into a pale arm

pain

incredible pain

my arm where is my arm

"what's the mission?"

one

ten

a thousand men

shouting "HAIL HYDRA"

"you have shaped the century"

James Buchanan Barnes

**The Asset**

you're my friend//you're my mission

can’t remember

(why can't I remember?)

Dark

Cold

Pain

"but I _knew_ him"

**Death**

destruction

explosions

"the end of the line"

Deadpool's bright costume in glimpses

a mountain of chimichangas, laughter and a smile

He sent back, carefully, "Do you want to remember?"

The maelstrom resolved into words. 

I want to be alive

I want to be myself

I want to know

I

I am

but I can't

I can't be an "I"

because I don't know

_**Would you allow me to help, as thanks for returning our children? It may hurt, but I can try to heal your mind.** ___

Flashes of fear — distrust — anger — pain

Careful not to overwhelm the younger man, Charles sent back memories of love, of watching the children grow, of compassion and healing. 

_**I want to help** _

He absently heard Wanda come in. 

Barnes replied _yes, please, help me_ and sat down on the bed, allowing Charles to touch his face. Charles dove in, repairing memory bridges, rebuilding mental walls and connecting and protecting and fixing as much of the damage done by 70 years of electroshock damage that he could. Then Xavier searched carefully for embedded triggers, like those the Red Room was so fond of leaving, and delicately extracted several kill switches and obedience codes before putting James to sleep and retracting his hand, trembling.

He returned to reality, and Erik was there to embrace him. "So long. Our entire lives, that young man's been getting tortured by Hydra."

His husband shuddered. "Those lunatics who got kicked out of the Nazi party for extremism?"

He looked over at Deadpool over Charles' head. "I hope you burn them to the ground."

The assassin replied, "That's the plan, sir. Is he going to be okay? Well, relatively, because as another crazy assassin I know OK is relative, but, like, permanent damage wise?"

Charles nodded, watching the stricken expression on the twins’ faces. "I've repaired the physical damage to his mind as much as possible, so he'll be _able_ to remember, if gradually, and removed the triggers from brainwashing so he'll be able to control his actions. He'll have agency and a chance. Emotionally? He'll need help learning how to exist as a human, how to reconcile the memories and the trauma, and figure out his own sense of identity. 

"Sooooo, time and therapy?" Wanda ventured. "Like veterans get?"

"Having sympathetic friends who don't expect him to remember or to act like anything other than a paranoid, traumatized assassin will help. Civilians or old friends should be introduced with extreme caution." Charles straightened his shoulders and continued. "But thank you, so much, for returning our children. Is there anything we can do for you?"

The masked man shrugged. "If you guys have contacts in other countries, James has a target list, and we'll never be able to get to all of them. It keeps getting longer, the more bases we raid. If you want to help, we could give you half, or more." He shrugged. "I mean, I get if you're not interested…"

Charles smiled as Erik rolled his eyes and said, "Deadpool, son, I'm a bisexual Jewish mutant Holocaust survivor. If anyone wants to take out Nazis, it's me. Between the Brotherhood and the X-Men, we've got teams around the globe and can definitely help you out."

Deadpool pulled a small notebook out of somewhere in his suit. "Great!" He ripped out page after page as he flipped through, handing the stack to Charles. "I'll call the mansion if we have more leads for you. Send useful intel to the Black Widow, care of Stark Tower; she's working on data analysis. I figure having one person processing it all will give us a better picture than if you guys analyze separately. Also, the two of us aren't so good with the data mongering part of it as much as the killing and chaos bit, so we leave the spy shit to the professionals. And James has a crush, I think. Not that I blame him – did you know she can kill a man with her thighs? I'd like to die like that, someday," he said with a smile. "Don't look at me like that. I don't _stay_ dead. Ever. Trust me; I've tried."

After they gathered up their belongings and left on the jet, Wanda squeezed up next to Storm. "You know, Deadpool's cool and all, but they should probably get someone with a _little_ common sense on their Revenge Road Trip 2014. Like, they had _Senators_ on that list, which probably needs more evidence and subpoenas than C4 and katanas."

Storm glanced over at her from the co-pilot's seat. "I've got a friend who can help with that."

\-----------------

The rubble was still warm when they got there.

The note said:

> WIDOW-
> 
> James thinks your assassin-y skills are impressive and hopes you enjoy your present. We left him alive, just for you – check the top file in the box. I'd stay and chat, but we have teenagers to get to safety, so we've gtg. They were pretty good in a fight and they have Shit To Avenge, so maybe look them up next time you're recruiting?
> 
> <3 DEADPOOL

Natasha laughed, then looked at the top folders in the box. One matched the bound and duct-taped man snoring on the asphalt, and the next two read MAXIMOFF, WANDA and MAXIMOFF, PIETRO. 

"Pepper, get over here," she beckoned, nudging their prisoner with her boot. "They had _Magneto's kids_ as hostages, what the hell? Get me X-Men Mansion on the line, and get JARVIS to open up a recruitment file. I think it's time to expand our roster."


	4. Last Name

Waking up from memory restoration was like a hangover from hell. James couldn’t distinctly recall anything new, but some of his headache was gone. He glanced up to where Deadpool was watching cartoons – a stuffed bear was climbing a tree to get honey while a stuffed…pig? looked on worriedly.

James yawned and watched to the end of the episode while he packed his gear up – he really liked the donkey, Eeyore. 

Later, in the van, after breakfast, he looked it up on Deadpool's flash drive of (probably illegally obtained) television shows and started watching, grateful that the other man had claimed dibs on driving this morning. They pulled onto highway 24 as the movie file loaded up. James watched the street signs go by: Marlatt, 55 MPH, Pass With Caution, Next Right: Barnes, Faith Church, turn at Barnes, Barnes, Tuttle Creek State Park, 2 miles.

"Barnes," He repeated out loud.

"What was that?" Deadpool asked.

"Barnes. It sounds familiar. It sounds like..." He closed his eyes, pictured writing it out. Scrawled it with a finger on the leg of his jeans. Barnes, comma, James. That sounded better, looked right, to his imagining, but it was missing something at the end. Barnes, comma, James Bu— James Book— "Barnes, comma, James Buchanan," he said out loud. I think that's my name. James Buchanan Barnes. James Barnes." He smiled. "Hi, I'm James Barnes." He sighed. "Well, it sounds right, but it doesn't sound perfect. Like maybe I had another name, too."

Deadpool reached over to pat him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, dude, you'll figure it out. You're already remembering more, and you're on no one's schedule but your own."

James Barnes, James Barnes, James Barnes.

He liked the sound of that.

Civilians and independent operatives and even SHIELD employees had two names. Natasha Romanoff had two names. Now James Barnes had two names. 

He slumped down in his seat and pulled on headphones. "I'm going to watch more Winnie the Pooh now."

Deadpool passed a slow-moving tractor. "Whatever floats your boat, kid. If you like that, I've got some other recommendations for happy cartoons. Powerpuff Girls is going to blow your mind."

Winnie the Pooh marathoning for the drive up to Nebraska did not, thankfully, trigger any more memories. They stopped at a Taco Bell around ten and picked up two Grande meals, going in to the restaurant to use the facilities and switch drivers. There was a small blonde boy sketching in a booth when James (Barnes, James Barnes) returned from the restroom, and he had to sit down suddenly at the flood of memories. A skinny kid with light hair, bent over a sketchbook in a schoolroom, in the back pew of a church, in a hospital bed, in a small apartment, in a park, in a restaurant with bright red vinyl in their booths, like the ones here. He blinked once, twice, and had to put his head down in his hands when the boy smiled. More memories – the same boy, now painting, now writing out assignments, now dealing out cards, now taking a cookie that he offered. He didn't remember the boy's voice, but he knew what the kid looked like doing a hundred different things, at the movies, at stores, at home, younger and older than this one, and James knows somehow that the skinny kid with the grin and the bright hair was his _friend_.

Well, that was new.

Deadpool stuck a drink in his right hand. "Up and at 'em, space cowboy. We've got two more hours to go, and I want to be done by dinnertime."

James shook his head, standing up. "Sorry, yeah, I just… I remembered an old friend. Well, I think it was a friend. I definitely knew someone at one point that I didn't remember five minutes ago."

"Achievement!" Deadpool said, weaving through the tables on his way to the door. "This is food you can eat while you drive. You want to take this shift?"

He nodded. "Fuck, yes, give me something else to concentrate on. I can seriously not handle any more flashbacks today, and driving doesn't bring them on."

"Roger that."

James stopped in his tracks on the sidewalk. "Well, there we go again. His name was Roger or Rogers or something. I don't know. It sounds familiar, and it sounds like it belongs to the kid I remember."

"Three in a day, you are on a _roll_! Let's get out of here."

They spotted the Hulk sitting in a field of sweet corn on their way to Ord, Nebraska. Deadpool made Barnes pull over, set down his guns, and approached with hands up while the other man stayed in the van.

"Hey, big guy. You doing okay?"

The Hulk looked down at him, swallowing the ear of corn whole. "Who are you?"

"Deadpool, buddy, I'm a friend. What are you doing out here?"

Hulk shrugged. "Stupid Hydra goons take puny Banner out of grocery store in Ca-li-for-knee-a. Tell Banner, make gamma bombs. Banner says no, Hydra goons shoot Banner, Hulk smash Hydra goons, then run to where sun rises, because shiny metal man lives where the sun rises."

Deadpool smiled. "That's right! You're smart, Hulk, knowing your directions like that. Why did you stop?"

Hulk shrugged again. "Sun high in sky. Can't figure out which direction is which. Allllll fields, no cities, no mountains. Very confusing. Also, Hulk hungry. Corn is tasty. Sunflower fields need more salt."

"Okay. Well, my friend and I are going to go smash a Hydra base about ten miles that way." He pointed.

"Hulk likes smashing. Can Hulk smash with you?"

"Great plan! You want to ride in our van? Or on top of it? Or just walk behind." 

The green guy sized up the van and shook his head. "Hulk smushes vans. Too heavy. Walk behind is good."

\---------------------------------

The handwriting was smaller, less precise.

> Widow,
> 
> I am remembering more. You are a very efficient operative. Did we dance in Moscow? I think I remember that. You were very young. Xavier has taken our European list, so expect reports from his team. We found one of your Avengers, who calls you Red. Deadpool is taking us to someplace called A Pizza Hut. I hope it is not in an actual hut, as that seems like a poorly defensible location. I do not remember "Pizza," but he says it is good. He was right about Tacos, Pan Cakes, Chimichangas, and also Mongolian Barbeque, so I will trust him for now. It has not poisoned me yet. 
> 
> I hope this data is useful for your operation.
> 
> James Barnes (The Winter Soldier)

Natasha read the note and exhaled sharply. "Maria? You're going to want to see this."

The other woman swore softly. "Yep, that's a definite improvement. Xavier's trick worked, it seems. Who calls you Red?"

"The Hulk," she said with a shrug. "Wanna check the Pizza Hut?"

Maria grinned. "And leave Tony to clean up this mess? Sure."

They found Bruce sleeping on a booth, covered in a green t-shirt with a logo of a local plant breeder. A group of teenage girls in similar shirts of varying colors sat at a nearby table, Snapchatting and eating breadsticks. 

They looked up. "Black Widow! You're my favorite Avenger. I saw you on the C-SPAN. Very awesome," One said.

Another one passed Natasha a memory card, saying, "We got pics. Deadpool said to give you that when he paid the bill. Hulk eats a _lot_."

"Sad steampunk dude does, too. I think he tried two of everything," said another.

"Sad…steampunk…dude?" Natasha asked, fighting a smile.

One of the younger girls, who couldn't be older than thirteen, said, "Yeah, metal arm, lots of buckles, dark circles under his eyes. Deadpool kept trying to make him laugh, with really dirty jokes. Mentioned something about triggering memories. Figured he was a veteran – we get a lot of 'em through here."

Maria nudged Banner awake. "Any mention of where they're going next?"

The girls looked at each other before shrugging out of sync. "North, I think. They were comparing maps for a while."

Natasha thanked the girls and paid their pizza bills with a generous tip.


	5. In Which Neither James nor Deadpool Wins the Body Count Contest

"North" was a decoy, because they were heading to a mining ghost town in Arizona, current population 2: a museum caretaker and her domestic partner of 50 years, who managed the landscaping and facilities. The partner traded jokes with Deadpool while Barnes got directions to the abandoned mineshaft where their carefully decoded maps indicated another base. They went ahead and planned the op without resting for a day, because Barnes' nightmares on the drive down were brutal, he looked like death warmed over, his dark circles were back, and Deadpool thought a distraction was in order. As far as he could tell, the lack of sleep was a small problem – the brutal memories that returned when he _did_ sleep were doing much more damage. With the memories returning, Barnes was acting a little angrier, a lot more shell-shocked, but also a lot more human. Which was probably good for his healing process, yada yada, but sucked in the meantime.

Ergo, small-and-probably-harmless base as a distraction, and Staying Away From Cities for a day or two.

They piled back into their van, iced teas in hand, because even hardened mercenaries had trouble saying 'no' to little old ladies. 

The first layer of the base was typical – computers, filing cabinets, weaponry. 

The second level had a long, narrow corridor of empty, barred cells, with a single flickering bulb on at the end of the hallway. Watching both doors, they made their way down, checking each cell. The final cell on the left held a middle-aged woman who held herself like a fighter. She took a step closer to the door, not stepping within reach, and addressed Deadpool. "Great, now Hydra's hiring mercs?"

He laughed. "Who, us? Nah, we're 100% anti-Hydra pro-bono mercs at the moment. They tried to kill us with that Insight-ful world domination plan – get it? – so now we're just getting free-range revenge and destruction, no ulterior motives."

"None at all," she said drolly.

"Well, I think the Winter Soldier here's got a competence hard-on for the Black Widow, which is hot in theory, but mostly terrifying. He leaves her love notes and presents when we blow up Hydra bases."

Barnes felt his face increase in temperature by one degree Celsius as he turned to glare at Deadpool, gritting out. "Intel. I leave _intel_

The woman laughed. "Those are actually pretty good gifts from Romanoff's perspective. Doesn’t explain why the Red Room's ghost is killing Nazis."

Barnes leaned back against the door to the opposite cell. "As far as I remember – and my memories are…" He wiggled a hand. "Very spotty – I was originally a Hydra POW, but Hydra lost me in the 50s to the Russians. Russians did a lot for the tech side, did better on memory suppression and implantation, let me out of cryo a bit more. When the USSR fell, they had me training their agents, really young ones, for a while, I think out of desperation. Something happened, and the next time I was thawed out I was back under Hydra control, and they weren't as…refined. Blank slate wipes instead of surgical techniques."

"When I found him, the guy barely knew what food and water were food for," Deadpool interjected. "Also… did you know about sleeping?"

"I didn't!" He smiled at the prisoner. "Sleep is amazing, ma'am. I can't believe I forgot about it. One more reason to burn Hydra to the fuckin' ground, I figure."

She smirked. "That's a mission I can agree with. You mind getting me out of here before the fireworks start?"

The men exchanged a glance. Deadpool shrugged. "Barnes, care to do the honors?" 

He grasped the door with his metal arm and yanked, stripping three deadbolts and a chain with it. "Do I have to give her a weapon? I like my knives. And I don't know her well enough to trust with the rocket launcher."

She laughed, shrugging into a jacket and stepping out of the cage. "Don't worry, boys, I can acquire my own weapons just fine." She pushed the heavy hallway door open, cutting to the left and choking out the single Hydra guard without letting a sound escape. Barnes stepped over the body, clearing the corridor ahead, as the woman stripped the guard of weapons and a nice looking holster, keeping the knives out. 

Behind them, Deadpool had cut right and was clearing side rooms one by one of presumably-important shit, as his purloined backpack got a little fuller after each room. Barnes did the same, filling up his cargo pockets with hard drives. He pushed the last door on the hall – to find a break room full of at least ten heavily armed, heavily muscled white men.

He stepped into the room, incapacitating one man with a thrown knife before breaking another's neck. He moved onto a third (strangulation) before glancing back at the woman, who was surrounded by the other seven and armed with two small knives. 

He had a moment of concern – just a slight one – before she moved in a blur of legs and falling bodies. Breathing heavily, she stripped the bodies of keys and flash drives and weapons while Barnes gaped. "Who _are_ you?"

She shrugged. "Agent Melinda May, formerly of SHIELD. And you are?" 

"As far as I recall, James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier. Don't really remember much about _being_ James Barnes, but Xavier says those memories will come back eventually. Probably painfully, like all the other have. Bastard." 

May laughed. "Oh, Phil is gonna love this. You met Captain America yet, Barnes?"

He nodded, sweeping the rest of the room. "Twice. On a bridge and on the Helicarrier, as it fell. We tried to kill each other. He fell. I pulled him out of the river. I think he's something important to who I used to be, but I can't remember what. Story of my life, you know? All these assholes come after me, trying to kill me, and I can't even remember what I did last month, never mind in Guadalajara in ninety-two."

She shrugged, pulling on a backpack filled with files. "That's life for you. It sucks, and people try to kill you. But Cap's a good memory for you, promise. I haven't worked with him myself, but he's a solid operative. He'll forgive whatever shit you did while you couldn't remember, too, if you're worried about that. That man's got a heart of gold and the shoulder-waist ratio of a Dorito, as Stark likes to say. Stark's good people too, but annoying as fuck. You ever have problems with that arm of yours, go to him, tell him Melinda May sent you. He's the best in the world at cybernetics and prosthetics, and he owes me a favor. Since you saved my life, I'll let you use it." 

Barnes raised an eyebrow before nodding back at the door. "Thanks, I think. Trying to get level negotiating ground, and my memories back, before I go chasing down ghosts of my past. I'll keep it in mind." They made their way back down the corridor towards Deadpool's sounds of chaos, setting remote-triggered explosives every few yards. 

Deadpool, when they got to him, was wiping off a sword and humming a jaunty tune, surrounded by a small mountain of bodies. May, to her merit, barely winced. Barnes knew that Deadpool's way of dealing with things was bloodier than most people’s, even most spies’, preferred. But it got shit done, and it wasn't like he could cast any stones himself. His body count, he was starting to realize, was staggeringly high. Just because he tended to stay under the radar, didn't make his hands any cleaner.

Deadpool bounced back out. "Got some decent info, Freezer Burn. Charges set on your side? I don't think there's anything else here."

He nodded. "Yep. Agent May here took out eight to my three, so I think she's in the lead. What did you get, seven?"

Deadpool slumped dejectedly. "Yeah. But I'm okay conceding the title if it's to the Cavalry herself. Seriously, ma'am, it is such an honor to meet you in person."

“Do _not_ call me that,” Melinda said, rolling her eyes as she started for the door. She tossed her backpack to Barnes, who accepted it bemusedly. Most people hesitated at least a little before throwing things at assassins. "I'll give you a freaking autograph if we can just get out of here, boys, so don't get distracted. Good intel, live explosives, ringing a bell?"

They climbed back out of the mine much faster than they'd gotten in, hopping in the van and sending the signal as they cleared the parking lot. 

May availed herself of their first-aid kit and granola bar collection without asking. "So, Deadpool," she started, disinfecting a cut in her arm. "What was with the Billy Joel as a theme song down there?"

Deadpool swerved around a corner, heading back towards the freeway. "What, ‘We Didn't Start The Fire’? That's my song for Educating Amnesiac Assassins Who Slept Through All The Fun Shit. Also, it involves fire, which really works as a theme song for us. That's our history education, he's got a good know-how of tech advances and weaponry. For culture, we're working alphabetically by artist through my iPod. We're in the early Ks now."

May wrapped gauze around her right shin and turned to look at the passenger seat. "So, any favorites, Barnes?" 

He shrugged. "fun.’s lyrics are complicated, but I like them. Um, James Taylor makes me cry, can't listen to that while I'm driving. The crap he calls 'oldies' is pretty good for driving, but I spent all of yesterday listening to Janelle Monae. You need to call someone?" 

She shook her head. "Nah, my team's in the area, and that explosion would've drawn their attention. I give 'em two minutes 'till they show up. Don't shoot any of them, please, I like them. And they hate Hydra just as much as you do, I promise."

The 'team' pulled onto the highway ahead of them a minute later, in a flying cherry-red convertible. Seriously, it flew, it pulled overhead, it landed. A skinny girl held up a sign that said "PULL OVER" in solid black ink, and with a heavy sigh, Deadpool complied. The guy did NOT like stopping, once he was on the road. (The Hulk was a big, huge exception of such mayhem-causing-abilities that he just couldn't resist).

May barely waited for the van to stop before throwing open the side door and jumping out, jogging over to embrace the kids who piled out of the backseat. Seriously, they were like twenty or something, and did not look like combatives at all. Assured of May's safety, Barnes followed her up the road, carrying the two bags of theoretically useful junk, while Deadpool idled the van. 

A white man in a nice suit got out of the driver’s seat of the convertible and approached him. "Thanks for bringing her back," he said, extending a hand. "Phil Coulson. I've got a team of former SHIELD agents. We're trying to take out Hydra bases." 

"Barnes. Deadpool's in the van. He doesn't like strangers. Well, strangers who look like Government that he's not allowed to kill. It's a thing. May said you know the Black Widow?"

"We do, why?" Coulson said, cautiously.

Barnes shoved one of the bags into Coulson's arms, tossing the other at May, ten feet away, who caught it one-handed without even turning to look at him. 

Wow.

"Bags are for her. Normally we leave them at the site, but we didn't leave much rubble, and the parking lot was starting to cave in. I'll text her, let her know the change in plans. That okay with you?"

A hint of grimace crossed Coulson's face. "We'll make it work. Tell her 'Sunflower'. It's an old shared safehouse of hers. That way you don't have to give a location via unsecured tech. You need any help?"

Barnes shook his head. "Nope. We gave half the list to, uh, Magneto was his name? So Deadpool and I only have one stop left, a Senator, I think. From his files, he seems like a major douchebag, so I don't mind KOing him at all."

Coulson bit his lip, what looked like… amusement? in his eyes. He was getting better at detecting emotions, he really was.

"Well, it was good to meet you, Barnes. You ever feel like getting paid to do what you're doing now, I could use your help. I'm rebuilding SHIELD, back to the original mission of protecting civilians from extraordinary threats, but this time with one-hundred percent fewer Nazis." He rifled in a pocket, but somehow Barnes didn't feel like that was threatening. The guy _exuded_ Not A Threat. It was probably intentional. "Take my card, give me a call sometime. Or an email, if you feel that's more secure. I brought in the Widow and Hawkeye and several other assassins – you can talk to them if you're unsure about how you'll get treated. Once we get off the ground and secure funding, we'll even be able to offer benefits."

Barnes nodded and accepted the card, mouth bending up a little on the side. "I'll think about it. Not that mass chaos with Deadpool isn't fun, but I don't think I could do the merc route forever. It's exhausting. Not that I knew what exhaustion _was_ , a month ago, but the internet's great at figuring out the basic needs of human beings. Parenting websites for toddlers, I shit you not, have been my best friend."

Coulson chuckled a little. "Oh, I know. There's some great resources for dealing with PTSD and trauma, especially in returning vets, too. I've got an entire Pinboard section dedicated to that, because I've been a supervising agent for so long. That's – Pinboard's a website for bookmarking internet links that's particularly useful if you change computers a lot, since it's linked to a user's account, not a hard drive. My username's MIBAgentC, if you want to investigate me. Promise I won't get offended. It's mostly crap I use for helping my agents, recipes, and nerdy stuff. Nothing really secure or relevant to national security." The agent shrugged. "No pressure, just thought it might help. Now, you want to get out of here before the LEOs notice the crater you left?"

He nodded. "Good plan. I should probably get Deadpool out of here for my own safety, too. It's one of his less-sane days, and he's getting twitchy. When I'm the saner assassin in the van, we run into problems. I promised him the mall in Phoenix as a reward for good behavior, so we'd better get going." He gave the agent a lazy salute and strode back to the van, stepping up and hauling himself inside as Agent May waved goodbye from the back of the red, red, beautiful car.

A song was playing, and Barnes closed his eyes to listen. 

_Pay my respects to grace and virtue, send my condolences to good Hear my regards for soul and romance, we always did the best we could_

Deadpool floored it and shouted over the throbbing beat. "It's a band called The Killers, I thought you'd appreciate that!"

> _Are we human, or are we dancer_  
>  my sign is vital, my hands are cold  
> and I'm on my knees, looking for the answer  
> are we human? or are we dancer? 

They did, in fact, hit up a mall in Phoenix, where they explored such delectable treats as “Cinnabons” and “soft pretzels” and “Hot Dog Onna Stick” while Deadpool dragged him bodily through store after store, including Victoria’s Secret. (Victoria, James surmised, must be quite the expert operative, to keep secrets despite non-combat-standard apparel. Perhaps Victoria trained in the Red Room?)

When they reached a store called “Hot Topic,” Deadpool slung an arm around James’ shoulders and escorted him in, saying “Pick out some things you like – I’ve got gift cards to spend and coupons that are about to expire. You’ll be doing me a favor." 

He handed things to Deadpool as he walked through the store – several new hats, shirts, and hoodies, a new backpack, a couple sets of headphones, and a Black Widow wallet. The salesboy looked positively gleeful, and James smiled back at him – none of his purchases had any strategic reasoning behind them, and that was _very_ satisfying.

Twelve stores and four restaurants later, they took their TGI Friday’s carryout to the hotel down the street, where they watched Deadpool’s bootleg of the Star Wars Holiday Special (Bea Arthur, Jamie, Bea Arthur!) and eventually fell asleep, pressed hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder in the single, king-sized bed. James only woke up once from a nightmare that night, but Deadpool clung like a… leech. Or a starfish. Maybe a very hug-loving sloth.


	6. Filler Title Here, As All of the Titles I Can Think of Spoil the Plot

#### Jennifer:

She found them eating clam chowder on a rickety wooden pier in Provincetown. From what she could hear over the crashing waves, they were talking about the hotness of various people swimming down below, with little regard for gender.

She'd gotten a call from a blocked number last night. It was an Agent Melinda May, a SHIELD remnant who’d seen her name in Bruce’s file and thought she was trustworthy. Agent May warned her that two assassins were on their way to Pennsylvania to take out the Senator, and that she should probably get in touch with them if she wanted him to live to see his court date. Senator Stern's laundry list of Hydra-related crimes occurred in her county, of which she was an Assistant District Attorney, and she'd been assigned the case a week ago.

The DA decided to go ahead and prosecute, despite threats to their office. She’d taken the job in the DA’s office straight out of law school, prosecuting domestic violence cases for the most part. This case would normally go to one of the Chief ADAs, but they were both tied up in complicated long-running murder trials that they couldn’t step down from.

The two men turned to watch her approach as she came down the old pier. "Hello, gentlemen. I've got a proposition for you."

"Who the hell are you?" the one in the mask asked. It was pulled up over his nose, presumably so that he could eat, and he had scars moving around his chin as he spoke. From May's description, this was obviously Deadpool, which meant that the long-haired kid in the "[] Human [] Dancer" checkbox t-shirt had to be the Winter Soldier, who went by Barnes. Despite the hardened eyes, he couldn't have been more than thirty, and dressed younger, with ragged fingerless gloves, layered long-sleeve shirt under the T-shirt, and black Cons. Well, if he was trying to blend in with the teenagers, she had to give him props, though his travelling companion kind of voided out the attempt.

She took a deep breath and responded, "I'm Jennifer Walters, and I'm the Assistant District Attorney in charge of prosecuting Senator Stern. I'm hoping to put him in jail for a long, long time, after spreading his dirty secrets over every front page in the country. However, if he gets assassinated by a pair of well-meaning mercenaries before a fair trial, he'll turn into a martyr, which is…" She trailed off, but Barnes nodded, chuckling.

"Pretty much the last thing we want. Message received. Sorry, we're not the best at thinking about consequence. Or long-term planning. Or sanity."

Deadpool nodded. "Especially that last one. But we're smart enough to listen when someone's got a plan, well, mostly, well, okay, rarely, but now is one of those times, so pull up a patch of wood and talk."

She hopped down and joined them in dangling her feet off the edge, glad that she'd worn jeans to this meeting. "I've got a rock-solid case, documentation going back for years in paper, audio, and video forms that clearly implicates him in enough crimes for ten life sentences. Agent Romanoff brought over another boxful this morning, which I'm sure will be an absolute joy to go through. I've also got about thirty witnesses lined up, including Tony Fucking Stark, who I'm trying to avoid bringing out unless absolutely necessary. He's a reputable witness, but also tends to call congressmen assclowns, so I'd rather keep an air of professionalism. What I don't have? Is safety. I'm here because my cousin Bruce is eating a hotdog up the beach, keeping an eye out for trouble. He didn't think I was in danger from you two, but he's a good nuclear deterrent if some Hydra flunkies of Stern’s decide to remove me from the picture."

Deadpool tilted his head at her. "Why would your cousin Bruce be a nuclear deterrent? Is he a bodybuilder or something?"

She laughed. "No, he's just a scientist, pretty wimpy looking. But he moonlights as the Hulk."

"Ooooooh. You're _that_ ADA Walters. Matt Murdock has some colorful things to say about you."

Jen grinned. "Oh, I bet he does. Back on point, though, is that I could really use the pair of you. We can bring witnesses in through a sheltered entrance, and Stark's providing additional security for them, but I have to come in through the front and talk to the press, or it'll look like I have something to hide or am somehow afraid of these imbeciles. Barnes, I hear you're a sniper. I could use eyes up high, watching the entrance to the courthouse and making sure I don't end up dead. I've got one other sniper, Hawkeye; you might have heard of him. He owes me a favor for a little problem he had with the mob last year, so he can cover another angle. If the two of you are willing to work together, I'd really appreciate it." When Barnes nodded, she continued. "Deadpool, I could really use a bodyguard on the ground. You're a little…" She waved. "Obvious to stand at my side, and Bruce has reluctantly agreed to do that. But if you'd be willing to walk the crowds, hang with the paparazzi, spot any suspicious behavior, and keep in touch? Give me advance warning of any problems?"

The men exchanged a glance before Deadpool spoke. "Well, it's less fun than what we had planned, but probably will result in fewer civilian casualties, which I _guess_ I can live with. Especially as a chance to work with someone who pisses off Murdock as much as you do. You'll need to buy us dinner, and also call me first if you have any assassinating needs. Other than that? Hmmm. No attempts to discover secret identities, and no blaming me if they slip through the cracks. Hydra's slippery. Three of us can't cover every angle, no matter how hard we try. Especially not if you insist on being in such a public, exposed area."

Jen smiled and shook their hands. "Agreed. It's a deal, then."

 

#### James

The logistics came together without a hitch, and Hawkeye was relatively chill to work with. Barnes enjoyed Hawkeye's taste in pizza at their meetings, and they compared weapons with little drama. Deadpool somehow acquired a clean suit to look sharp for the cameras, and they hit the roofs bright and early the first day of the trial, radios in place and working well. Jen's rumpled-looking curly-haired cousin did not look like someone who could break Harlem on a bad day, but Barnes remembered their op in Nebraska. While generally careful of bystanders and clearly capable of tactical thinking and teamwork, the guy was just so huge that he caused a lot of collateral damage, without seeming to take any damage himself. Good choice for a bodyguard.

The first few days of the trial went off without a hitch, and Walters got home to her (rotating) hotel rooms in her (randomized) cars without a hitch four nights in a row. The paparazzi got louder and more plentiful with each succeeding day, but no attempts were made.

That fifth day, though – that was when _everything_ went wrong. Court that day had gone blisteringly well for the prosecution, meaning that Stern was furious, and the paps were energized. They got the all-clear after the day's witnesses got out safely, then watched as Jen's cousin came out the doors, tapping his com to get the go-signal.

"This is Deadpool, all clear down here. But the crowd's packed in, so be careful."

"Good on my side." Barnes said. "Hawkeye?"

"Yep."

Banner nodded and pulled the door open, and Jennifer came out, briefcase in hand as flashbulbs went off. She answered a few shouted questions before pausing at the top of the steps.

"Hrrrlk," James heard over the coms.

"Report! Who was that?" he asked, watching the lawyer take questions from the crowd.

"Hawkeye!" the archer grunted over the sound of combat. "I've got trouble up here, and he's wearing a com. Deadpool, I think you've got company, and it's going to be in the Soldier's blind spot."

Barnes couldn't see the entire crowd, could only see the steps as members of the paparazzi crowded up around Walters, separating her from her cousin. "They've got them separated, Deadpool, get close, screw stealth."

"It's a fucking nightmare, guys, I can't get close, I'm—"

A shot rang out.

"Trickshot's out of commission, I've got eyes again, sorry, sorry, Deadpool, shooter's on your three o'clock, heading east."

"Got 'im. Barnes, you got eyes on Jen? I'm securing the perimeter."

"No, the crowd's too thick, FUCK. Banner, report."

Barnes saw the scientist push a reporter out of the way and shout something. A moment later, a circle cleared around the lawyer, who was in a pool of blood on the concrete. "She's not doing well, it’s a chest wound, SOMEONE GET ME A MEDIC." He kept speaking as he pulled off her jacket, balling up his own shirt to pack into the wound. "She's still breathing but barely, she's bleeding out, damn it."

Barnes saw a young person of ambiguous gender run up the side of the steps, large case in one hand. Opening it and pulling things out, they spoke rapidly in a slightly accented voice, which Barnes could barely hear through the coms. "Doctor Banner, there's not much I can do, not until the ambulance gets here. I've got the triage equipment from inside, but I can't treat a chest injury, and it'll be five minutes before an ambulance can get through the crowd."

"Will she live that long?" Bruce asked while they started triaging Jen, pulling on gloves.

“I’ve got saline and some blood coagulants, which should help a little, but ambulances don’t carry transfusion equipment – it’s too much of a liability. It’s going to be close, making it to the hospital in time.” The medic packed gauze into the wound and tossed Bruce a pair of break-and-shake ice packs.

Bruce shook his head. “I can’t wait that long! She’ll die!”

“I’m doing everything I _can_ , Doctor Banner. I’m _sorry!_ ”

Banner took a deep breath, muttered “Shit” and grabbed two IV lines and a pair of hemostats out of the pile of triage equipment. He looked out at the few brave paparazzi members who lingered around them. “I need electrical tape and a pocket knife.”

Two different photographers dug into their camera cases and tossed him the requested items.

James couldn’t see what was going on because of the people standing in the way, but within a minute he could hear Banner breathing deeply over the radio. The doctor was muttering, "Come on, big guy, it's for Jen, just stay under for a few minutes, there's no danger to us here, you can do it, you know Jen, she's nice to you, it's okay."

A minute later, the paramedic sat back on their heels, letting James see the lawyer's skin turn green. "What the hell?"

Banner laughed in clear relief, pulling bandages from Jennifer's chest with his free hand. "I warned you. Healing factor, comes with the green. C'mon, get this packing out before she heals right around it. I don't want to have to surgically remove it. Come on, cuz, you can do it."

"Thank God," Hawkeye said over the coms. "By the way, Banner, I've got the ambulance on the phone. They're about a block away, if she still needs them by that time."

"I'm going to want full scans, so yeah, we'll need them. What's the situation?" Banner multitasked, working around the transfusion line to check extremities.

Deadpool responded. "I'm sitting on the shooter – literally, he is under my ass right now. Calls himself Bullseye and is a major dick. Did it for money, on Stern's orders. The idiot actually hired hitmen from his work email, under shitty encryption, which I suspect the FBI code breakers will figure out in a few hours. Tell your cousin congratulations, because I'm pretty sure that ordering a hit on the opposing council works as a confession in most courts of law. Barnes, you want to call your agent-y friends? The local cops won't have good enough cells to hold these guys."

Barnes replied, grateful for something to do, instead of just watching helplessly. "Will do. Going off coms for a minute, don't worry."

He dialed the number from the business card in his pocket, sighing in relief when Coulson picked up on the first ring. "That offer of help still open? I've got two masked hitmen in somewhat-dubious custody after they tried to kill Bruce Banner's cousin, the lawyer prosecuting Stern? Right in front of him."

There was a pause. "And they haven't been smashed?"

"No, actually, Banner's working with a paramedic to keep her alive. They had to do an emergency transfusion and she's looking a little green, but she's breathing regularly again and, you know, no longer bleeding out from a fatal chest wound. Nobody's dead or getting smashed. Though I'm tempted. This kind of amateur shit is horrible for my reputation, and Hawkeye's about to have a coronary, apparently he knows the hitmen. Something about the circus?"

Coulson swore a blue streak. "We can be on the ground in twenty minutes. Is the situation under control?"

"Well, the LEOs have gotten us some flimsy protective barriers and pulled the press back, so it's improved? But still crap."

"Fuck. Okay, stay put, we'll get there as fast as possible. Coulson out."

Barnes packed away today's burn phone and switched his com back on. Banner was telling a conscious Jennifer jokes as the paramedic carefully disconnected them, and the ambulance had pulled right up next to the building. They loaded the attorney onto a stretcher as she complained about her ruined skirt.

Deadpool spoke up on the radio, offering up his dry cleaners, who were apparently amazing at getting out bloodstains, but she just sighed, coughing up a little. "Thanks, but I think the fact that I just gained like four sizes is the bigger concern. Brucey, you owe me a makeover."

"Whatever you want, Jenny. I'm just glad you're okay."

That first paramedic was still shaking their head in amazement. "It's a miracle, really. They'll double-check at the hospital, but I'm pretty sure the damage is already completely healed."

Walters whined, "Yeah, but I'm _starving_."

Their sympathetic chuckle was barely audible as they carried the stretcher away from Banner. "Don't worry, hon, they'll get you on an IV with all the glucose and saline you could want, really soon."

Agent Coulson arrived, and called them down from their respective perches, as the ambulance pulled out of sight. He'd found their frequency, and James could hear him directing the scene on the ground – assisting the local detectives collect evidence with supervision from his Agent Simmons, securing prisoners, widening the perimeter, and calming down Walters' terrified young paralegal.

James was on the second story and heading down when Clint reached Coulson in a flurry of anger and profanity. He paused mid-rant to hand off _his_ prisoner to someone he called 'Tripp' and picked right back up, yelling at Coulson like it was his day job.

"TWO FUCKING YEARS PHIL! You never write, you never call, you never leave carefully coded postcards in our designated drop boxes, I have to find out you’re alive in the _middle of an op_ , you have time to check up on your sweet little ex in Portland but, oh, no, no checking on Clint, never mind that I was under MIND CONTROL last time I saw you! Never mind that we've been working together for a decade, nope, no contact, no courtesy. And I wasn't the only one who mourned you, you know? I have painted Pepper's toenails and listened sympathetically, like, ten times. I have helped Darcy make sad playlists in your honor. And you know what? Steve didn't need to lose anyone else! He'd already lost enough people, like, a week beforehand, and then _you_ have to go and start the waterworks all over again. Yeah, that's right. You made Captain America cry. I hope you're happy now."

James _ran_ down the last flight of stairs and was crossing the courtyard when Coulson finally got an edge in word-wise.

"I missed you too," he said softly, smile barely present as he looked at a wildly-gesticulating Clint.

Clint froze, mid-sentence. "I – oh – you _bastard_ ," he blurted out before engulfing the other man in a hug. When he started hearing sniffles, James pulled his radio out, glaring at Deadpool until he did the same.

He turned away from their reunion and took the opportunity to send a text from his personal phone, opting for directness over coordinates, which could get complicated in a city.  


 

[text-only version of text conversation here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lQBgLj9NCM-QQLgibZJTHgpq82nb8s4DrDD0zGht5WM/edit?usp=sharing)

Deadpool walked over to him. "Hey, you need me to stick around? Or just meet you back here on Monday for guard duty? I need to check on my apartment, pay my rent, make sure there isn't any sentient cabbage growing in my fridge."

James waved him off. "Yeah, no, it's fine. I've apparently got plans the next few days. Meetings. About things." He shuddered at the thought of all the likely flashback triggers he’d have to face this weekend.

Deadpool let out a sympathetic groan. "I know, right?" He gave James a quick hug (!!) and bounded away enthusiastically towards the subway station before Barnes had a chance to respond.

Seriously, boundaries.

He was a world famous assassin. Who just came up and _hugged_ him? He’d stabbed Deadpool once, when the other man had surprised him with a hug, but the mercenary still kept on tackling him with hugs and punching his shoulder and pulling him places.

And then Clint had apparently gotten his shit together, because he was clapping James on the shoulder and _why were people touching him today?_

Clint took a big step back because, whoops, James had apparently said that out loud. 

"Sorry, man.” Clint said. “I tend to get handsy with my teammates. It bothers you, I'll stop."

"It doesn't bother me," James corrected, shaking his head. "I'm just… not used to it. It's weird. You two okay?"

Clint shrugged. "We've got some old crap to sort out, but now that I KNOW HE'S ALIVE," he raised his voice with a pointed look at Coulson, who just smirked. "We’ve got time to sort things out. Especially now that he's Director of the re-started SHIELD, I can get my job back."

Coulson nodded before turning to James. "Speaking of which. How would you like a job? You've definitely proven your worth over the last month. Our contracts give a lot of freedom, salary's so-so since funding is coming slowly at the moment, but we offer generous signing bonuses and housing allowances."

He shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm kind of tired of the whole killing-on-other-people's-orders thing. Defending myself and my friends is one thing, but once I'm done with this gig? I don't think I want to take that kind of orders anymore. Sorry."

Clint nodded, like he understood. "How about teaching? We're going to be getting a lot of new and newly promoted agents who are going to need training in combat, weapons, tactics, the whole nine yards. We could really use you for that. Maybe put in a clause where you could take field missions of your choosing, like if the world was ending or something, but that nobody could force or pressure you to do so?" he said, and glanced over at Coulson, who nodded in approval.

"If it's just the field duty you object to and not, well, us, then we can work with that and find a place for a man of your talents."

James closed his eyes and inhaled. Pictured teaching young adults how to hold a pistol, work as a team, take down multiple opponents. 

"I think – I think I would like that. And you say there's a housing allowance? Because I'm kind of living out of my van."

There was, in fact, a housing allowance, but it turned out that Coulson had Shit To Do before he could sign employment offers, so he'd dropped James off at Stark tower. 

The secretary smiled at him when he approached their desk. "Good afternoon, Mr. Barnes. Here's your guest pass; please take the far-right elevator and JARVIS will direct you from there."

Their eyes were lined all the way around and their hair had blue streaks. It looked very _cool_ , a word that James had picked up from a teenager in a food court and taken a liking to. Their nameplate said "Morgan Iljushko."

"Who's JARVIS?" he asked the young person, who smiled at him.

"Oh, he's the AI who runs the building – artificial intelligence? Sentient computer?" 

James nodded in recognition at the last one. "Gotcha. Thanks, um, Morgan." Damn it, honorifics were hard if you didn't know what pronouns to use. There needed to be a neutral equivalent to 'Sir'. "Pleasure meeting you."

He waited for the elevator doors to close before addressing JARVIS. "So Stark treats robots well, then?"

"Yes, Mr. Barnes." the ceiling responded in a smooth British voice. "Though I am not a true robot, lacking a body, he treats all of us quite well, whether silicon or carbon-based life forms. Sometimes, he even treats us better than organics, though that's a very low bar."

James sighed in relief. "Thanks, JARVIS. I'm just…"

"Been treated like an experimental subject instead of a sentient too often? You have nothing to fear from Mr. Stark, sir." The doors opened smoothly. "First left, Mr. Barnes."

Stark was streaked in grease and wrestling a new wheel onto a one-armed bot who whirred excitedly at James. 

"Hey there, Skywalker, take a seat. I just got to fix this little guy first… there you go, Butterfingers. Yeah, go help the fabrication bots, that's a good bot."

He popped up and looked across the workbench at James. "So, Romanoff says you need some help. What's the problem?"

James stripped off his jacket and his Black Widow t-shirt to show Stark his arm, laying it out on the bench and flexing. "Some of the plates are sticking, limiting my range of motion. Fluidity of motion in general has reduced by approximately thirty percent. Pressure sensor about here—" He poked a spot on his forearm "—is dead, this one over here's giving false signals all the time. Additionally, I can't move my smallest finger."

Stark nodded. "Okay, sounds doable. Any pain?"

"Nope. I don't have any pain sensors, or temperature. Just movement and pressure."

Stark tapped his screwdriver against his palm. "Can you open up the plates at all? Will it freak you out if I do that?"

"They open, and it won't freak me out. It's tricky, but there's a seam…" He turned his arm to show the inside. "Here, here, here, and one on the back of my shoulder that I can't reach without dislocating something."

"Tricky is right." Tony responded, coming around the bench to look. "Failsafe against you helping yourself, I bet. Hey, DUM-E, come over here. Hold this screwdriver… yep. Barnes, hold this one here, and I've got the tricky two…"

James watched the plates flip out of the way, still connected by wires. Which was strange, but also really cool. Like Threepio. He bent his head to get a better look. Wow, some of those gears were really rusty. 

"Wow." He poked at the exposed wiring in his wrist. "Ooh, hey, pressure sensor!"

He looked up to see Tony gaping. "Wow, no sense of body horror, check. I can work with that, but you are a rusty bucket of bolts, my friend. JARVIS, puzzle piece tracking." A hologram appeared in the next to James' head as Tony pried some wires to the side. "Any clue what this runs on?"

James shook his head, but the AI responded. "I cannot find a power source, sir, but there seems to be a series of transformers in the shoulder joint, at the point where your organic parts meet inorganic, Sergeant Barnes. Your arm appears to run on the energy from the rest of your body."

He blinked. "Well, that sounds both terrifying and cool. Also, explains my appetite."

Stark laughed. "My kind of response. But seriously, you didn't remember that?"

James wobbled his free hand. "Some things are coming back, yeah, and a lot faster since Xavier fixed the physical damage that prevented the connections from forming, which is letting my knock-off serum boost my brain's healing. I still have to _remember_ things, though, and without a new connection, or a trigger, or motivation, it just doesn't happen. Sometimes random things come back in dreams, and I've gotten bits of the late eighties, most of the sixties and a lot of my childhood back, but the War and what came after is mostly blank. Xavier thinks my brain's protecting me from the most traumatic memories, which agrees with everything I've seen about post-traumatic memory suppression. So it seems like I might never remember getting my arm grafted into a cybernetic one, probably without sedation, and I am so, so okay with not remembering that."

Tony winced. "Yeah, ouch, wouldn't want to remember that, either. You okay with me working on this now? I can fabricate new gears to replace all the rusty ones, clean out the plates. I can see the loose connections on two of the pressure sensors you pointed out, but the third one just looks broken. It _looks_ like it's standard components, though, so I can make up a replacement pretty quickly. While those are fabricating, I can look at that finger. Hopefully it's just a loose connection."

James nodded his assent, and Tony got to work, narrating the entire process. It was a little disconcerting seeing the engineer pull pieces out of his arm, but since they were rusty and in some cases _crumbling apart_ , he was mostly just glad to get them out. Like thorns. Or popping a blister. 

The fabrication units hummed pleasantly in the background while Tony cleaned between his skin-plates and carefully checked out his immobile pinky finger with tiny tools, replacing worn wires and resistors. Then, it was just reassembling the puzzle, which he helped with. The gold-titanium replacement parts (Iron Man Grade!) were still warm to the touch as he slotted them back into place. Tony placed the last one, reconnected his pinky-finger, and watched with a smile as James moved reflexively – and all the fingers wiggled.

"Okay, close 'er up. Let's check your range of motion." 

Barnes flexed and rotated his arm, hand, and shoulder joints, cracking his neck and yawning. "Wow, that feels great."

Stark set his tools down and gathered up the 'pages' of the hologram in a neat stack. "Okay, so my question is, can I hold on to these scans for now? I think I could improve the pressure sensors, get you at least a little sensation, maybe a temperature detector. At some point, I could also upgrade the rest of the parts, not just the ones that are falling apart. But it's your arm, so I'm only going to work on this with your permission. You want it gone, I can delete it all, or give you a flash drive with the data and only work on it with you present. Up to you."

James considered it. "I'm okay with you keeping it and working on it, but can you make sure it's not on a network?"

"Worried about hackers? I can store it on my personal server, which is off-network, only accessible from this room, and has some of the best encryptions in the world, even if someone broke in, which they can't, because I take security seriously. It's where I keep my own medical records, and Pepper's."

"That's acceptable. Now, can I put my shirt back on?"

#### Clint

#### 

Clint ate his steak and smiled in relief as he watched James read the employment contract on Phil's tablet. This – bringing in the Winter Soldier – could have gone another way entirely. That way could've involved capture, restrictions, confinement, tracking anklets, supervised therapy, but this way was better. Coulson always had a good way with paranoid assassins, and it was focused on agency. Maximum respect, freedom, and choices, with a high tolerance for quirks. 

The simple employment contract included a signing bonus and the first installment of the promised housing allowance, which would be enough to get settled. Of course, Barnes didn't have a bank account, but an email to Skye got that figured out. She sent Phil the account numbers, with a note that she'd get checks and a debit card sent to Clint's apartment. Barnes had printed his own ID on a DMV-grade machine _in his van_ , which was hilarious, but Natasha was going to get him the full set of docs for it, plus several backup identities. 

Then they moved on to the lease agreement, which was for the spare apartment in the building Clint owned. It was a pretty standard, simple lease agreement, but was noticeably missing the weapons clauses found in most city apartment lease agreements. Barnes was never going to register all of his guns, even if he could, and it was stupid to put that line in. They sent copies to the printer in Clint's apartment, because Phil was a paperwork wizard, and finished up their paperwork dinner with an enormous piece of pie a la mode. 

#### James Once More

#### 

Once they'd wrapped up the (surprisingly simple) work shit, they picked up his van from a parking garage and headed back to Barton's Bed-Stuy apartment building. James accepted his keys and surveyed his new home with a wide smile. He dropped his duffels of gear and clothing on the ground and stepped back into the hallway. He caught Clint before he climbed the stairs. 

"Hey, Barton."

The other man poked his head back into the hallway. "Yeah?"

"Where'm I gonna get _furniture_ , dude?"

Barton just laughed and laughed.

Eventually, Clint offered to go shopping with him on Sunday, as super strength didn't really agree with what ikea.com could overnight, and lent him a sleeping back with a camping mattress. 

"Come up for breakfast before your meeting with Cap, dude. You'll need the energy." 

(The alternate title for Chapter Six was: A Footnote In Someone Else’s Origin Story.)


	7. Reunion + Epilogue(s)

Steve looked from the gravestone back to Natasha, who handed over the file and walked away, smiling. Steve then turned to Sam, who said, "Well, we better go get started."

Together, they walked out to the parking lot… where Bucky (!) was sitting on top of Sam’s car, messing with a shiny Starkphone. He was wearing purple sneakers, skinny jeans, and a light blue shirt featuring Lucy from the Peanuts in her "Psychiatric Help – 5¢" booth. His hair was in a high ponytail, pulled through the back of a [khaki baseball cap with an emblem of three small girls in different-colored outfits.](http://thumbs1.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mGsC5LUV_8ggwaz9CQQaMoA.jpg)

Bucky pocketed the phone as they approached, pulling out an earbud. "Stevie, you're an idiot. No, don't even start with excuses, I heard that _whole_ conversation. Going after a brainwashed assassin the _same day_ you get out of the hospital, despite the Black Widow's warnings? What were you thinking?"

Steve stopped in his tracks, still pretty far away. He croaked, "Bucky?"

"Yeah, that's my name; don't wear it out." He turned his head. "But seriously, Romanoff, you're a massive troll."

Natasha stepped out from behind the caretaker's van. "I know. It's fun." She shrugged. "And he wasn't listening to me anyway."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "No, of course not. Nothin's gonna stop Steve Rogers from charging into danger, despite all advice, of course not." He turned back to Steve, who could hear Sam snickering behind him. "Well, you found me, congratulations. No need to go rushing off to Hydra bases like a reckless fool, now. But, hey, I hear Stark's offering jobs to unemployed former SHIELD agents, if you're bored."

"What." Steve was _so_ confused. Bucky was fine? Here? Knew Natasha? 

Who was now laughing, too.

And Bucky was still talking. "I heard some crazies shot up your apartment, man. I'm sorry about that. But I've got a place up in New York, if you need somewhere to crash. Put cushions on the floor, you know, you can shine my shoes." He smirked.

And Steve caught on, shook his head, and guffawed. "Oh, you jerk," he choked out, once he caught his breath. He narrowed the distance in five large strides. 

Bucky said, "Look who's talking, punk." He hopped off the car and dove into Steve's arms. Steve couldn't resist, just picked his friend up and spun him around, before holding him at arm's length.

"Seriously, you're okay?"

Bucky shrugged. "Alive and kicking. Working on the mental stability bit, but…"

"Aren't we all?" Steve finished.

"Exactly. I've got a job and an apartment and a van. Well, I stole the van from Hydra, but I didn't really leave anyone alive to protest the theft, so it's cool."

Steve scratched his head. "So, what have you been _doing_? Taking on Hydra?"

Bucky laughed. "Mostly, yeah. Also making friends, rescuing people, getting memories back, shopping, causing lots of explosions. You know, normal stuff."

At that last statement, Sam just lost it. "Normal – stuff. Nat, has he been this funny the whole time?"

Natasha hopped up where Bucky had sat before, nudging him in the back with her shoe. "Nah, the Soldier was actually pretty boring at first. But then he met Deadpool and started recovering and the sense of humor came right back."

Bucky was _smiling_ and _leaning back into Natasha's legs_ , and— "Hold on, you've known he was okay this whole time? And you didn't tell me?"

Natasha gave him one of those Really, Rogers? looks. "And what good would that have done?"

"He'd have come chasing after me with three broken ribs and pneumonia and gotten killed by Hydra, that's what it would've done."

"Yep," Sam agreed. "Nice to meet you, by the way. Sam Wilson."

Steve was still really, really confused about what was going on, and pinched himself to check if it was a crazy dream brought on by bad hospital food. Nope. 

Didn't really matter, anyway. Bucky was _here_ , and whole, and cracking stupid jokes with Natasha, and so everything else in the world didn't matter – now, they would be okay.

EPILOGUE ONE:

"Nope, I don't care if it clashes. It's 2014, I have free will, and I can get Star Wars bed sheets if I want ‘em."

EPILOGUE TWO:

ADA Walters had never hated female fashion as much as she did right now. Suddenly she was 'plus sized', which apparently meant she had a choice between loud grandma patterns or black, and nothing fit right or had pockets. She just needed a sharp suit for court on Monday, but apparently that was too much to ask.

She broke down crying in the Nordstrom's dressing room, which is where Pepper Potts and Natasha Romanoff found her and joined her in swearing at the designers of women's business apparel. Bruce wandered off at some point, though she was fairly certain he was the one who’d tipped the other women off. Otherwise, how would they even know she was in the city for the day to shop?

She found herself going home on Sunday night with a bespoke suit by Tony Stark's tailor, with a promise for more to come, gorgeous Louboutins in her new size, and a lunch date for the next weekend to discuss business.

She wasn't sure if she should take "won't show you when you wade through the blood of your enemies" comment as serious shoe-shopping advice, because with the Black Widow, you just never knew.

EPILOGUE THREE

The Winter Soldier may have been done with killing, but Deadpool wasn't. As soon as the trial was over, he accepted Coulson's job offer and resumed the mission of Burning Hydra To The Fucking Ground To An Awesome Soundtrack, joined occasionally by members of the X-Men or the Avengers.

EPILOGUE FOUR

"You'll never get laid if you have Star Wars bed sheets," Clint said.

James rolled his eyes and defiantly tossed the package into his shopping cart. "Dude, I am so far from being mentally ready for sex. Trust me, the bed sheets are the least of my problems. Now tell me, should I get the Elsa throw pillow, or the Captain Hook one?"

"You just love the awkward jokes, don't you?"

"Clint, if I don't joke about my disabilities and issues, they control me, and Hydra wins. Plus, Disney movies are amazing."

EPILOGUE FIVE

"Really, the entire time I was in the hospital, you knew?"

EPILOGUE SIX

Agent Carter (nice, blonde, competent) poked her head into his classroom. "Barnes, Rogers did something stupid, got captured. You want in on the retrieval team?"

James looked to the ceiling and sighed. "Ooh, boy." He tossed the laser pointer at Agent Lewis and set his lock down. "Get them through the rest of the PowerPoint and have 'em practice on the models, okay? Class, homework is to be able to get yourselves out of locked handcuffs, using whatever tools are necessary. Practice in pairs and don't come crying to me if you lose the keys."

He headed for the door, and Carter tossed him his go-bag. "Am I really that predictable?"

She laughed. "Yeah, Barnes, you kind of are."

EPILOGUE SEVEN

He rescued Steve more often than anyone else. It wasn't that he cared for Steve more than his other friends, or that he got captured more often. It was that Agent May and Natalia and Deadpool and Wanda tended to rescue themselves, before he ever got called in.

EPILOGUE EIGHT:

Even though he was mostly-settled from the road show, Deadpool still dragged him to stuff every time he was in town. Concerts, food trucks, protests, and conventions. The metal arm made for great cosplay choices. 

It also made Steve _so confused_ , which made Bucky's 21st Century PTSD Mental Health Choices the greatest unintentional prank ever.

James Barnes never made claims to sanity, not now, and with Deadpool that was _okay_. But more important than his lack of sanity was the fact that he was happy, and it was, well.

It was all his choice.

Which is what made it perfect.

> To: captainunderpants1918@yahoo.com  
>  From: n0td3adpoo1@gmail.com
> 
> Steve,
> 
> Deadpool stopped by, and we’re apparently hitting up the farmer’s market today, so I won’t be meeting you to run. Text me if there’s anything you need. If not, see you at movie night.
> 
> Bucky


End file.
